Wish I had more time
by Tortoise01Swe
Summary: "If only I had more time...maybe I would have done something different..." A series of Zutara oneshots, taking place in different times and locations.


**A/N:** Welcome to my series of Zutara oneshots, some of them might be from the same universe, some might be AU or maybe even crossovers.  
Most of them will be rated K to T, readers you have been warned.

So this story was inspired by the song belove, I highly recommend you to listen to it before reading, it really gives you the right emotions. Also this is not my first but my second fanfiction I've posted here so please have som mercy on me okay? I'm not a native english speaker since I'm from Sweden so I'll do the best I can. If you find any grammar fault be sure to tell me and I'll correct them the best I can.  
 **  
Disclaimer:** I don't own Avatar or the characters in any form. If I did though Zutara would be canon and steam babies would be made C:

* * *

 _Am_ _I alone with the thoughts that I have?_

 _I'm afraid that I'm scared of myself  
Am I the only one to doubt who I am?  
Wish I was someone else_

 _Everytime I try to swim, it pulls me,  
pulls me deeper down  
Everytime I try to fly, it holds me,  
holds me to the ground_

 _It tells me I'm a freak,_  
 _drains me,_  
 _the monster inside of me_  
 _Freak_  
 _Save me_  
 _The enemy is inside of me_

 _Would be easier to fight someone else  
than the war I fight within  
It's impossible to hide from yourself  
Where do I begin?_

 _Everytime I dare to dream it wakes me,  
wakes me with a cry  
Everytime I dare to love it hates me,  
hates me 'til it dies_

 _It tells me I'm a freak_

Freak by Molly Sandén

 **FREAK**

It was a beautiful night in the outskirts of the Fire Nation. It was a chilly one; neither to hot nor to cold, but the temperature would soon start to drop as they days got closer and closer towards Sozin's Comet. Stars were shining with all their mighty glow before the morning sun would once again block them from view. Down on the ground a small cave was illuminated by the full moon's last rays of light before it would fall back into its eternal phase. Most of the inhabitance in the forest was sleeping peacefully with the moon keeping watch over them. Well, most of them.

Katara found herself not being able to sleep. The full moon kept her awake, but she could feel that it would soon begin to fade. The night was simply calm but she found that she was anything but. Her nerves and muscles were all tensed up, like she was preparing herself for an incoming battle. This happens everytime there was a full moon, but this time it felt different, more determined. All she could do was to look up at the shape of her former friend and silently ask her for guidance.

"You shouldn't be up this late."

She didn't turn around, she didn't need to. Zuko walked up and sat down crossed legged beside her. He glanced at her but she paid him no attention.

"You should go back to sleep"  
"I can't..."  
"Why not?"  
She gave him an odd look before turning back to the moon.  
"The spirit oasis, remember?"  
 _"You rise with the moon, I rise with the sun."  
_ "Oh, right." Zuko said, as he rubbed his neck in embarrassment since it had been him who had pointed that fact out.  
They said nothing for a while, just sat in silence and admired the starry sky. Deep in their own thoughts.

"Do you think that I should've done it?"  
Zuko looked surprised at Katara, not expecting her wanting to start a conversation with him. He looked down on the ground in thought.  
"If I were you, I would've blamed myself for my own weakness..."  
"Are you implying that I'm weak?"  
Zuko looked at Katara and met her angry glare; he had learned to be careful around her when she wore that look. But somehow he felt very calm looking into her ocean blue eyes.  
"...But since you're not me, I think you did the most honorable thing someone could have ever done."

Katara's mouth was left open before she slowly closed it. She stared at the ground and tried to avoid those piercing golden eyes. She dug her fingers into the ground and slowly clenched them together. _How can he say that? How can he say that like he means it?  
_ She felt a hand squeezing her shoulder, and she felt how she started to tremble. She glanced at him but found it impossible to meet his gaze, _  
_  
Zuko let go of her, but not before giving her an extra squeeze and a reassured smile. Katara bit her lip and clenched her fingers tighter until her knuckles were turning white. How could he stand the thought of touching her? How could he even stand to look at her anymore? She felt all the anger and pain that has been building up inside of her starting to rise.

"Stop it..."  
Zuko looked at her with a confused face. Not noticing the threat behind the words.  
"Stop acting like this, stop acting so...nice and...caring..."  
"Katara?"  
"STOP IT ZUKO!"  
Suddenly she was up, staring him down. Zuko slowly stood up as well, not liking being vulnerable close to an angry waterbender during a full moon.  
"STOP BEING SO NICE TO ME! STOP BEING SO CALM ABOUT ME NEARLY KILLING A MAN IN COLD BLOOD AND SAYING IT WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO!"  
"So...are you saying you wanted to kill him?"  
"OF COURSE NOT, THAT WOULD HAVE MADE ME AN EVEN BIGGER MONSTER!"  
Zuko shut his mouth as his eyes widened a bit.  
"Katara...you're not a monster."  
"OF COURSE I AM! I BLOODBENDED AN INNOCENT MAN ONLY TO BLOODBEND AND ALMOST KILL THE MAN THAT MURDERED MY MOTHER!"  
The air went out of her lungs when she realized the full scale of her intentions. Tears threatened to fall. She almost fell to her knees. Almost.

"I promised myself that night I would never bloodbend again. But I did it without thinking it through, just because of some stupid feelings..."  
Zuko took one step closer to her, he tried to find the right words to say but Katara beat him to it.  
"I...I wanted to kill him...I really wanted to get justice for him murdering my mother, but I...I just couldn't do it. I wanted to hurt him in so many ways; I have imagined it for so long. But once I faced him...once I saw those sad and pathetic eyes...I just couldn't do it." She looked down shamefully, feeling how tears she tried to hold back started to fall down her cheeks.  
Zuko couldn't take it anymore. In two steps he was in front of her. Putting his arms over her shoulders and pulling her towards him in a deep hug; something he had learned to give more freely now.

"Killing that man would have solved nothing. You said so yourself, he was pathetic. An empty shell filled with nothing but emptiness. But you knew that he wasn't worth it. You were able to see past his unforgiving deeds and let the anger go. Anyone else would have succumbed to it ...I know I would have."

Katara took in his words as all her anger just ran out. She felt suddenly very drained and tired; her body was practically hanging and his strong arms were the only thing preventing her from falling to the ground. But he embraced her tighter when her body became more limp, and she found to her surprise that she could draw strength from him. She almost wanted to laugh out loud of the irony that the boy who had helped destroying what she loved was also the boy keeping her from falling apart.

"Why do you do this? It's not like I asked you to..."  
"Because I made a promise to myself when I joined you, and I intend to keep it."  
"What promise?"

He let go of her, still keeping his hands on her elbows as he looked her in the eye. She felt how her feet were now standing stable on the ground.  
"That I wouldn't fail you anymore. Not now. Not ever."  
Katara found no words, she could only stare at him in shock.  
"Do not blame yourself Katara. A monster is someone, or rather something, which takes and destroys without a second thought. The day you turn into a monster is the day my father welcomes me back home with open arms."  
He turned his back to her as he clenched his fist hard.  
"After all, you're not the monster here, you've never been..."

Maybe it was because she was paying attention. Maybe it was because she was good at spotting the small minor details in-between the lines. Maybe it was because she knew how he worked so well by now...  
She grabbed his wrist before he even took his first step.  
"Zuko...you're not a monster..."  
"How can you even say that?"  
His voice was – if Katara dared to say it – filled with anguish and disbelief. Something she hasn't heard since the time in the crystal catacombs.

"I hunted you down like a predator hunts for its prey. I hurt so many people, simply because they were "in the way". I betrayed so many people, even when they had showed me kindness I didn't deserve. Everyone I every loved or cared about left me, because I betrayed them, because I was too blind to even realize what I was doing, any less accept it. Besides, my appearance doesn't really say otherwise."

The last sentence he spat out like it was poisoned. He turned his head slightly to the left and looked at her in the back of his eye. The moonlight shone on him, making his scar look dark and scary for those who wasn't used to seeing it. But Katara wasn't scared, she wasn't afraid of it anymore. She realized that somewhere during those weeks when she had blamed and accused him she had stopped seeing the scar as something hideous. Now it was more as a part of him –no, it was him. Scar or no scar, he was who he was. But she just knew that he hadn't come to terms with it yet. He still hadn't accepted it as a part of himself.  
She felt how she squeezed him tighter. He looked at her with disbelieving eyes, as expecting her to let go any minute, but she was done with him sulking and keeping things to himself.

"Prince Zuko, you're many things but a monster isn't one of them. And trust me, of all the people in this world I should know that.  
His full title tasted foreign on her tongue. He didn't seem to notice it though, as he snorted out his next words.  
"So you don't think that destroying people's lives, betraying their hope and hunting them down counts as a monster?"  
Katara got the strange feeling that they weren't talking about other people anymore. But she didn't let that distract her from achieving her goal.

"A monster is someone, or rather something, which takes and destroys without a second thought...or did I hear wrong?"  
He didn't answer her. She slowly walked in front of him, still holding his wrist in a secure grip.  
"What you said to me goes to you as well."  
"You haven't made as many mistakes as I have."  
"Just because I'm on the good side it doesn't mean I haven't made them"

Their gazes met, and she felt a wave of goosebumps surge through her when she met those golden and sparkling eyes. She let her own words sink in and the more they did, the more she came to the conclusion that it was true. Just because she was fighting for the greater good it didn't make her perfect, and just because he had fought for the wrong cause it didn't make him a monster. It all clicked inside of her, like a sunrise at the break of dawn.  
She let her fingers travel to his, and let them intertwine. She looked down at them before looking back at him. He looked at her with sad but asking eyes. She felt her pulse increase and her heart beat faster.

She found that she was tired of hating him. All her hatred had been circulating around him; she felt tense everytime she saw him and got reminded that they all were in danger as long as he was there, ready to turn them in to the Fire Nation at any second. But now when she looked him in the eyes, when she really took a good look at him, she clearly saw he was different. He wasn't Prince Zuko who chased them around the world trying to capture the Avatar, and she wasn't the Watertribe Peasant trying to defend him anymore. Left was only Zuko; a lost and confused boy who just made some mistakes, and Katara; a master waterbender that thought she knew how the world worked.

She opened her mouth, ready to spill out all her thoughts and apologies, but before she could he put his hand in front of her. He looked at her with a face that said everything and nothing at the same time, and Katara almost gasped as the unspoken words formed in her head.  
 _  
"I understand."_

She looked at him with a questioning face but he only shook his head and turned his gaze to the night sky. She followed him and for a while they just stared at the beautiful stars and the shining moon. She felt at utter peace, something she hasn't felt for a very long time.

She squeezed his hand he squeezed back. And no words were needed to express the emotions behind it.

" _Thank you..."  
"You're welcome..."_

* * *

 **A/N:** So what do you think? I added the part that Katara did bloodbend Yon Rah to give that little extra guilt feelings. I figured if she could bloobend the new captain of the Southern Raiders, then she might as well would have bloobended her mother's murderer. But maybe the moon wasn't up at that time or she thought better of it. Anyway this is my little point of view of it all and what happened afterwards. I figured that Katara must have realized at some point during their way back that she forgave Zuko, I don't think it clicked just like that in hear head when Aang confronted her about it. And Katara being Katara needed some time to sort her feelings of him right before telling him.  
Anyway see you soon for the next chapter!


End file.
